Recent comments

not everyone is made of money!! They should be free all the time!! dont we pay enough in taxes already? I have limited income and a family to support, we enjoy the parks also and it shouldn't only be for people with money.

Anon, If you're simply after a handy reference source for the national parks, I suggest that you download a copy of the new NPS Index 2009-2011 to your desktop. It's available online in two versions. You'll find the pdf version at http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/nps/index2009_11.pdf. The index lists national parks by state, with affiliated areas, wild & scenic rivers, and national trails at the rear. The alphabetical index, which begins on page 119, lists all the parks, affiliated areas, wild & scenic rivers, and national trails. It is current through January 2009.

I have found numerous mistakes in Wikipedia articles about national parks, including many I personally consider to be serious. I'm not going to joust with anybody about what is serious and what is minor. Accuracy matters, period. I stand by my original advice: Never use a Wikipedia article as a primary information source if a more reliable source is readily available. I do encourage people to fix the problems in the Wikipedia articles if they have the expertise, time, and inclination.

Thank you for posting that analysis. As an engineer, I tend to be very data and fact driven, so in my mind, the validity of global warming has not yet been proven. In fact, by the time it has been proven, it will be well underway and too late to reverse.

That said, as an avid fisherman on West coast rivers and streams, I appreciate the article's description of many of the other threats that have also harmed wild fish. The steps that the article lists to help our native fish populations apply not just to salmon, but to most fish in our fresh water streams and rivers. They are also very applicable steps throughout the West coast, not just the Pacific Northwest.

Man-made carbon emissions are now above the ‘worst case’ scenario envisioned by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), causing the most rapid global warming seen since the peak of the last Ice Age. At the same time the carbon is acidifying the oceans, with harmful consequences for certain plankton and shellfish.

“At current emission rates it is possible we will pass the critical level of 450 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere by 2040. That’s the level when, it is generally agreed, global climate change may become catastrophic and irreversible,” they add. “At that point we can expect to see the loss of most of our coral reefs and the arctic seas.”

“The climate is currently warming faster than the worst case known from the fossil record, about 56 million years ago, when temperatures rose about 6 degrees over 1000 years. If emissions continue it is not unreasonable to expect … warming of 5.5 degrees by the end of this century.”

Regarding Wikipedia and the NPS: I see many omission, which is natural as the whole project is a "work in progress". But "riddled with mistakes"? Have you found serious mistakes in NPS-related articles at Wikipedia recently?

Call for participation: Let's collect five Wikipedia articles on NPS units that need improvement. Then we choose one and put all our expertize together and brush up this article.

Be very careful when using Wikipedia as a source of information about America's national parks. It is riddled with mistakes and contains serious omissions. Always use more reliable sources if you have a choice.

Frank - Sorry, but you are flat out WRONG about mass transit using "as much petroleum as private vehicles". A 2002 study by the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute found that public transportation in the U.S uses approximately half the fuel required by cars, SUV's and light trucks. In addition, the study noted that "private vehicles emit about 95 percent more carbon monoxide, 92 percent more volatile organic compounds and about twice as much carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide than public vehicles for every passenger mile traveled". This was not the only study to document the positive effect mass transit has on high-population density areas. Also, I'll repeat what I said about car sharing - one shared car takes 15-20 private vehicles off the road! Yes, we still use fossil fuels - but we use a LOT less than you assume.

I am not "attempting" to take personal responsibility - I HAVE, and CONTINUE to take personal responsibility. To suggest otherwise is insulting. And "staying home" is not an option. Are you getting your data from a credible source, or are you making it up as you go along to fit your views?

There are a number of former National Parks. Most of them have been incorporated or split into other National Parks and a few have been "down graded" to other designations but stay within the NPS. But one has been given to the state of Michigan as a State Park and one former National Park is now a National Game Preserve of the FWS.

I admit I was unaware of current legislation, thanks for pointing that out. One of the facts that contributed to my error was that I remembered that quite a few National Monuments had been abolished, while to the best of my knowledge, this hasn't happened to any National Park.

While, technically, the change to NP status doesn't bring in itself more resources, it is often associated with an acreage acquisition and a potential increase in visitation (perception is important). Those can justify more resources.

I agree the limit can be arbitrary, however, not units have the same interest, so there is some rationale on having different designations.

In the Needles district, 2 other worthwhile shorter hikes are the slickrock trail and pothole point trail. Also, some rock art along Devil's Lane rivals that in the Great Gallery.

BLM has a number of campgrounds along the Colorado river above and below Moab, although I don't think that any have drinking water, so bring your own. Moonflower campground a couple of miles outside of town on Kane Creek Rd. is my favorite, but it only has tent sites and fills up early.

Even better, think about camping in Manti-La Sal national forest. The La Sal mountain loop is worth the drive, and in late spring, summer, and early fall, the night temperatures up the mountain are much easier for sleeping. There are a couple of developed campgrounds with water and pit toilets, but many places where you can pull off the road and dry camp. [The "half loop", from Spanish Valley south of Moab but coming out through Sandy Flats instead of Castle Valley, is also nice, and driveable in a rental car even in march and November.]

There's also camping in the ranger district south of the road into the Needles district of CANY and west of Monticello. [If you go to the Needles District but do hotels instead of camping, Monticello has a couple of no-frills motels that are much closer to the Needles District, much cheaper than Moab hotels except in December-February, and much more likely to have vacancies even without reservations during the spring and summer. Just don't expect fine dining or the ability to buy beer.]

Fisher Towers is worth the 20 minute drive upstream from Moab, and the hour hike into the base of the spires.

Bat: mass transit often uses as much petroleum as private vehicles. Electricity from light rail often comes from coal-fired power plants. Fossil fuel energy powers the construction of light rail lines, infrastructure, and train cars, and it often takes decades of ridership before that carbon generation is neutralized. Many urban buses have been shown to consume as much fuel per passenger mile as an SUV.

I'm glad that some have attempted to take personal responsibly (by not owning a car), but taking mass transit is often as polluting as driving.

Better to stay home, just to be safe.

Richard: If you want to talk about "playing with statistics", you ought to Google hockey stick graph to see what Mann and other global warming hysterics are willing to pull to advance their political agendas.

Boston Harbor Islands has cultural sensitivity issues for the phrase "recreation area" due to the Native American burial grounds. Their name on their demo annotated species list website (http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/monitor/DemoSpecies/BOHA/index.cfm) went from "Boston Harbor islands National Recreation Area" to "Boston Harbor Islands, a Unit of the National Park System", and finally to simply "Boston Harbor Islands".

Rangertoo is absolutely correct: from the inside, the unit type (Park, Monument, NRA, NHS, and the others) doesn't matter. However, the public/political view is very different, and National _Park_ status is perceived as a higher status. Backers of several units have made great efforts to obtain the name change.

One of the important qualities the AT has for flora and fauna is its protected nature. While there are indeed other parks and forests and yards neighboring it, there's no guarantee those landscapes will remain preserved down through the years. As development/sprawl starts chipping away at those, the AT's corridor becomes more valuable to birds, insects, butterflies, and yes, even deer and bear. I wouldn't call that a weak conclusion.

Here's a snippet from the AT MEGA-Transect (page 6):

Overall, studies show substantial decline in forested land in the Mid-Atlantic States and in Virginia from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, as well as increased fragmentation in the northeastern U.S.

Then, too (from page 11-12):

The A.T. corridor may harbor more rare, threatened and endangered species than any other National Park Service unit. Most of those species are plants, but rare animals are also found along the Trail. A.T. lands support more than nine federally-listed and 360 state-listed species of plants and animals. Perhaps most impressively, the A.T. also harbors more than 80 globally rare species. In total, more than 2,000 populations of these rare, threatened, and endangered species are found on A.T. lands.

More so, during my fellowship at Stanford earlier this year I met with a researcher who has been studying the movement of vegetation in relation to climate change, and he's chronicled that plants can move northward much more quickly than previously imagined. (His paper was still being reviewed at the time, otherwise I'd cite it.) I also met with other scientists (Dr. Terry Root, an eminent bird biologist) who believe "stepping stones" such as the lands protected by the AT will be vital to help plant and animal species cope with climate change. When you frame that contention within a paper (Global climate change and mammalian species diversity in U.S. national parks, by Catherine E. Burns, Kevin M. Johnston, and Oswald J. Schmitz, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University) published in 2003 by the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, you begin to appreciate the value of the AT:

This paper also addressed species loss and species gain in national parks due to climate change:

The projected influx of new species to the parks arises because of range expansion under climate change. That is, most species are expected to remain stable at or near their current geographic locations and to expand their range geographically northward. ... Our assessment indicates that national parks are not expected to meet their mandate of protecting current mammalian species diversity within park boundaries for several reasons. First, several national parks are expected to face significant losses in current species diversity. Second, all parks should experience a virtual tidal wave of species influxes as a direct consequence of vegetation shifts due to climate change. In the balance, the parks will realize a substantial shift in mammalian species composition of a magnitude unprecedented in recent geologic time.

Against this information and research, I don't think it's hard to appreciate that the AT is much, much more than "a continuous backcountry footpath for the enjoyment of people."

The greatest threat to salmon lies not in the future, with the unpredictable results of climate change. It lies in the past and present.

The greatest threat to salmon is the federal government, specifically the US Department of Energy and the Bonneville Power Administration, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation. These agencies contributed to cultural as well as biological destruction.

Initially I've been thinking along the lines of Docrep, but a bit further north. There is a similar image of Cape Canaveral National Seahore on the NPS website. But on a closer look the vegetation did not fit. Had to be far further north. My second guess was Isle Royale NP but the shape of the islands there is formed by glaciers and has a dominant direction, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore is not as small a mosaic of land and water.

My third idea was Voyageurs National Park and satellite imagery finally confirmed that one. Great picture of a stunning landscape. Thanks for sharing.